Stellar molecular jets traced by maser emission

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent VLBI observations of water fountain sources, highly collimated stellar jets in evolved stars, revealing their structures, dynamics, and evolutionary implications.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of VLBI observational results on water fountain sources, highlighting their kinematics, structures, and evolutionary significance.

Findings

Revealed typical dynamical ages of water fountains

Identified detailed kinematical structures of jets

Suggested the existence of equatorial flows

Abstract

Highly collimated jets found in AGB and post-AGB stars are expected to play an important role for shaping planetary nebulae. Recent VLBI observations of H2O maser sources have revealed that some of the spatio-kinematical structures of H2O maser sources exhibit stellar jets with extremely spatially and kinematically high collimation. Such stellar H2O maser jets, so-called "water fountain" sources, have been identified in about 10 sources to date. Here we review recent VLBI observations and relevant observational results of the water fountain sources. They have revealed a typical dynamical age and the detailed kinematical structures of the water fountains, possibility of the existence of "equatorial flows", and the evolutionary status of the host stars. The location and kinematics of one of the water fountain sources in the Galaxy is also revealed and shown here.